Tuesday, May 29. 2007

Boy, that was a ragged start to the Indy 500 sunday. I know all the celebs are important, but at least they could have taught Manning how to recognize a bad start and wave it off. It was just awful looking, the standard was below what I see at amateur SCCA races every weekend, and these are supposed to be the elite pros. Sigh.

Last year, I got pretty much overwhelmed by the blog spammers, and shut things down and walked away. Since then, the site has been doing well in its pure mode as a directory, and the blog software has gone through some upgrades, so we're going to try blogging again. I'm not turning comments on just yet (I have about 2000 blog spam comments to go through and delete) , but once they're cleared up I will probably turn comments on . In the mean time, I also upgraded the discussion software here so feel free to head over there and talk about things.

Tuesday, June 20. 2006

Some years ago, the SCCA removed the requirement for driver's medical info on the backs of their helmets. The reasoning was two fold; first, emergency services already had a slip on file from the driver's registration form, and second, because sometimes drivers use other driver's helmets (and the wrong blood type most assuredly can kill you, make no mistake about that.)
So at the NER national at lime rock a week and a half ago, I was astounded to see a new medical labeling system for helmets being deployed on a voluntary basis. The difference between this and the old system is that the medical data is inside an opaque plastic holder so that it remains private, apparently because of federal medical privacy concerns.
My problems with this are twofold. First, the main reason (helmet swaps) for removing the data hasn't gone away; drivers are no smarter about these things now than they were 10 years ago, and I do not expect this to change. Second, I was informed by an individual actually trained in the federal issues that the federal law wasn't really relevant to the SCCA; we don't really have any HIPPA issues (and for that matter, the feds haven't been in a blazing hurry to enforce HIPPA for those it applies to.)
Arghh. Sometimes I think the only reason I put up with this club is that it's better than the alternatives.

Tuesday, March 21. 2006

Updated Below
10+ years ago, I rented 1/2 of a 4000 square foot building in Cohoes, New York for a place to work on my race car and to store some project and parts cars. It was behind the Golden Krust Bakery and Restaurant, a Cohoes landmark, located on one of the islands at the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson rivers. I named my business (the one which this web site and the digest.net site operate under) Krusty Motorsports because of the location (honestly, it has nothing at all to do with the Simpsons, never did).
I got evicted (in a reasonably pleasant manner) last spring, because Eddie (the owner) wanted the building for his kids to use for a business they were starting. My cars are now mostly at Bob Karl's in Troy (Bob runs a car dealership and races Spec Miatas in SCCA along with his sons. I need to move the cars to the part of Rensselaer County I actually live in pretty soon, though.)
So I now hear that there was a gas line explosion at the Golden Krust this afternoon. One early report claimed it was under control and confined to one building, but I also heard that they called in all the neighboring FDs, and besides, except for the steel building
I rented, it was all one connected structure, complete with all the old oiled floors, and of course being a bakery, full of flour. The latest reports are that it's a total loss, and they're just trying to keep the rest of the neighborhood from burning down.
I really doubt that it'll return. Eddie was close to retirement, and I suspect his kids won't want to rebuild a bakery.Update
An article in the local paper on the fire: http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=463444&category=ALBANY&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=3/22/2006

Thursday, August 11. 2005

i have turned off comment moderation; i think that the tests included in the software to make sure it's a human and not a robot submitting the text is good enough. if i'm wrong, i can always turn it back on.
with any luck, i'll make some time to start posting again soon.

Saturday, July 16. 2005

for some 10 or more years, i've been complaining that the governence structure of formula one was broken. well, the events at the US GP in Indianapolis put that point home so forcefully that F1 in the US may never recover.
To provide some context for my opinions: for more than 10 years, i've been working as a scrutineer (tech inspector) with the Sport Car Club of America. at the present time i am the chief of tech for both the mohawk-hudson and new york regions, and i did a stint of 3 years as the divisional administrator for the northeast division. i've spent a lot of time at the race track, and a chunk of that has been spent in direct contact with administrative issues.
i am absolutely stunned by the fact that the people promoting what is in theory the highest level of motorsport in the world lost sight of the fact that their function was to put on a race. and that's what it comes down too - the officials running F1 got so caught up in their importance that they forgot about what it is they were supposed to be officiating.

some years back, i tried to set up an online motorsports magazine to complement the site. it was fun and interesting, but also a lot of work, and eventually petered out. in the interim, blogging has become huge, and a motorsports blog seemed like the fun way to do what i would like to do. so welcome...